Posts Tagged ‘cyclo90 challenge’

Since the Gran Fondo I took some time off and started riding a once a week group ride. I feel like a slacker compared to the training I was doing. Now to change gears.

I am just enjoying the bike right now ith 4-5 group rides a week. I run one 4 days a week in the early morning and it is a great start to the day. My next big event is not until September so Im just going to have fun until August then start the heavy training again.

In the meantime I have a friend that just got his first road bike and will be helping him out. I will be more of a social rider for now. I think it is good for the family and y mind at the time so ENJOY YOUR BIKE!

So after my first block and rest week of Cyclo 90 in- season. It was time to retest. My original Functional Threshold Heart Rate was 170 BPM and I figured out my zones from there. A month later I did the test even though I felt a little worn down and stressed. The test itself went well. I felt good during it and was chalenged for the last 3 minutes to keep up. I may have had a little more gas to start off a little harder because my last minute was strong.

Drumroll Please

My average speed went down by 2%

My average Heart rate went down 3%

From my calculations I was 1% more efficient.

So I am getting there. Like I said I felt that i could have maybe started with a faster pace to bring those numbers up. We will see what happens next month. I’ll repeat the test a week after the Gran Fondo.

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Today I was trying to get out to train all day. I was looking forward to getting outside on the bike as I haven’t been out in a few days due to schedule and weather. I wound getting caught up in a project all day consisting of putting a plywood floor in my attic and reorganizing the whole thing. Man my knees were killing me after that from kneeling on the plywood all day. Then off to work at 5:00. The nice think was I was able to ride to work with the Wishful Thinking That I would train on the ride home.

Well got out and off to a good start. Tackled the hill from work no problem actual the second best time up it. Then easy ride home to drop off my stuff and out on the road. I went to my starting point and hit it. I noticed very quickly how fatigued I was feeling then looked down and saw my heart rate zone. 5.2 Then I knew I was burning out. Last week the same section only had me at zone 4. By the time I completed the mile I was shot. I probably coud have done one more set but I didn’t want to compromise tomorrows workout. Plus it was dark and I was feeling a little nervous with the cars on the road.

One thing I have learned from other aspects of my life is if you have a nervous feeling do what you need to feel calm again. If I went down a car would not have seen me and I would not be here writing right now. My tag line is you can always push a little harder. Tonight I didn’t follow that due to safety and not wanting to compromise tomorrow. Tomorrow will be well worth it with single speed strength breakthrough and a Muscle Endurance Weight session.

Staying strong in the drops is one of the tough things for my. I am mor of a hoods kind of guy when I have a lot of tension in the gears. But, a wise man said the lower you are the more your peddaling power actually counts. So today I trained with high tension in the aero position. It started off great but as I progressed I found that my cadence was dropping. I think I over geared a little too much from the start. Somehow I made it through the whole 30 minutes eventhough the last minute felt like an eternity. Every time I looked down only 10 seconds passed. To top it off my son is in his bouncer next to me laughing his but off mocking my suffering. I think that got me though it because it forced me to step back and laugh too. Here is a quick video of the aftermath.

Today had a good session. Had to change the session type because of time today. I only had 30 minutes and was supposed to do an hour and a half ride with high cadence hill climbs. I spoke to Graeme and he suggested I do Lightning Leg Agility. Well the last time I had done this session was when I was doing the off season program.

Wow

I had improved immensely. I had a cadence peak at 192 RPM! I felt like I was going to explode but it was amazing. Afterwards I was spent but the energy started climbing about a half hour after the session and I felt great the rest of the night. Now I need to get some longer rides in because my fundamentals are going great.

I am only worried about long-term endurance but I still have about a month till my event. I will try to get a 70 mi ride in this week for piece of mind. Last week I did a 40 and was comfortable so 70 shouldn’t be a problem. My goal event is May 20th. Gran Fondo New York. 100mi with 8000 ft of climbing. Tomorrow another HIT Session. I can’t wait!

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Well it has been a crazy couple of days. Friday was a recovery day and I needed it after those circuits. Actually it is Sunday and I am still feeling it. Needless to say I took off on Friday. However I did get to enjoy the weather with a nice walk with my little guy. Saturday I was able to get out for 2 hours. I worked mon Muscle Endurance Chunks. The ride was great even though I was still sore. (Good sore) I went to the park and did laps. I find it is one of the best places because you don’t really need to deal with traffic. I got a PR on my park lap too. For that segment on strava I am now in 6th place! The best news was as the work out progressed I was getting stronger and riding faster. I guess next time I will need to add more chunks to the workout.

I had to alter my training schedule due to the holiday and my crazy schedule. I am a musician and I am performing Easter eve and Easter morning. So now Easter Day is a rest day and I will have workouts from Monday thru Thursday. Usually I have a Monday rest day but I moved my Sunday to Monday. I also did my more challenging ride on Saturday and moved the shorter one to Monday so I don’t get overloaded next week with the longer block. I guess we will see how that goes.

I only had an hour today and my plan called for basicly that. It wasn’t just an hour workout but it was non stop ciircut training. I started with cyclo strong- strength based workout with a mixture of dumbell, stability ball and body weight. That alone is a great workout that you feel the next day. However, today I had to stack sessions. Then immediatly after I jumped in to cyclo power. This workout is based on explosive power using dumbells and bodyweight excersises. Some of the excersises I needed to go outside for due to a low ceilling but was well worth it due to the quality of workout. Next came the part that totally destroyed me. Cyclo Ripped! High pace, high heart rate work. When I got to the scissor crunches and bicycle kicks I was basicly done. Then I had to get on the trainer! 6 minutes of Hell. Well it was well worth it because after the workout I felt so pumped. Had a protien shake, took a shower got dinner togeather and brought it to work. I felt great at work tonight and now I am beat. GOOD NIGHT!

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I got up late again! I wan’t happy about that. However that only gave me half an hour on the bike but I had options today either peddaling techniques or recovery ride. Why not both?? I started my ride with techniques interspersed but kept the intensity low and easy terrain. By the way it was a beautiful morning (50F). I rode throu 2 parks and realized it isn’t a good idea because the paths were pretty tight so the rest of the riding was on the rode. It was a niice start to the day being outside in the fresh air and relaxing on the bike. It was a much needed break from all the high intensity I have been doing the past couple weeks. Tomorrow back at it with some circut training. This sessioin is going to be tough. Here goes nothing!

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This morning i got up too late and needed an hour for my training today. I had 2 sessions set up one focusing on pedaling technique and the other on climbing attacks. I got on the trainer and wasn’t feeling it for the first 5 minutes. I pressed on anyway. Finally got in the groove but the first workout was over. No more time in the morning if I wasted to get to work on time. So I got ready and went to work. During the 5 minutes I had between my second and third period classes I got a great idea. I have a long lunch today so why not sneak in a workout at lunch. I was off as soon as the lunch bell rang, flew home got changed and hit the trainer. I think it was the adrenalin because I felt warmed up instantly and had a lot of fun through the suffering of zone 4 threshold constant with zone 5 attacks. It was a tough workout but it invigorated me. Finished with a very short cooldown. Put lunch in the microwave and jumped in the shower. Got changed in lightning speed grabbed my lunch and dinner to bring back with me because I know I would be working 3 jobs today and get out at 9:30 from the last one. Drank my protein shake in the car and ate lunch when I arrived at work. What a day.
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